Saturday, December 6, 2014

A visit to Amritsar invariably includes two things—paying your respects at the Golden Temple, and gorging on all the delicacies the city dishes up. The locals here love their street food, and the city is swarming with street-side vendors selling the freshest, hottest and richest versions of everything from a refreshing glass of lassi and sugary, sweet halwa, to buttery paranthas and spicy gravy. Here's out list of rich Punjabi delicacies in all their fatty splendour—so get your hands dirty, and eat to your heart's content. You'll probably pack on a couple of extra kilos, but we guarantee it'll be worth the weight.

STREET FOOD, AMRITSAR

Giani Tea Stall

Gurmit Singh has been running his tea stall very successfully for the last 58 years, and shows no signs of slowing down. When it comes to bubbling hot creamy chai, this man has the perfect formula.

Indian

STREET FOOD, AMRITSAR

Makhan Ka Dhaba

If the name were any indication, you can safely presume that a visit to Makhan Ka Dhaba won’t help in trimming your waist. Here’s what you get—absolutely fresh pieces of boneless sole fish, coated in a spicy batter of gram flour and carom seeds, deep fried till they’re crisp and golden on the outside, and soft and mois...more

STREET FOOD, AMRITSAR

Sunder Meat Shop

You can smell this joint before you see it. With 70 years of experience under their belt, the owners of Sunder Meat Shop have been dishing out some of the city's best kebabs from their humble venue in Chatiwind Chowk near Chawl Mandi.

Indian

STREET FOOD, AMRITSAR

Chawla’s Chicken

Chawla’s has several outlets, within Amritsar and even spread across the rest of the country, but it all began right here on Lawrence road, near Bansal Sweets.

STREET FOOD, AMRITSAR

Ahuja’s Kesar Wali Lassi

You know that image you have in your head, of a strapping sardar downing glass after glass of chilled lassi without the faintest hint of stopping? Ahuja’s stall—it’s close to Hindu College, and has the students dropping in by the hour—has become an institution of sorts in the city.

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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Cut diabetes risk with 2 spoonfuls of yogurt a day

PTI | Nov 26, 2014, 05.46 AM IST

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READ MORE yogurt|Type 2 diabetes|new Harvard study.

Cut diabetes risk with 2 spoonfuls of yogurt a day

Eating yogurt may reduce type 2 diabetes risk

WASHINGTON: A daily tablespoon of yogurt can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by nearly a fifth, according to a new Harvard study. Type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition that occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin, or the body's cells develop resistance to insulin.

Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health pooled the results of three prospective cohort studies that followed the medical history and lifestyle habits of health professionals. These studies included the Health Professionals' Follow-up Study (HFPS), which followed 51,529 US male dentists, pharmacists, vets, osteopathic physicians and podiatrists, aged from 40 to 75 years.

They also included Nurses' Health Study (NHS), which began in 1976, and followed 1,21,700 female US nurses aged from 30 to 55 years and Nurses' Health Study II (NHS II), which followed 1,16,671 female US nurses aged 25 to 42 years beginning in 1989.

"Our study benefited from having such a large sample size, high rates of follow up and repeated assessment of dietary and lifestyle factors," said Mu Chen, the study's lead author from Harvard School of Public Health.

Within the three cohorts 15,156 cases of type 2 diabetes were identified during the follow-up period. The researchers found that the total dairy consumption had no association with the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. They then looked at consumption of individual dairy products, such as skimmed milk, cheese, whole milk and yogurt. It was found that high consumption of yogurt was associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The authors found that consumption of one 28g yogurt per day was associated with an 18% lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

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Friday, November 14, 2014

You are here: Home » Articles » The Discovery of Chennai's Most Unusual Street Food

The Discovery of Chennai's Most Unusual Street Food

Chowder Singh, Modified: November 13, 2014 12:47 IST

The Tamil/Indian population in Burma (today's Myanmar) is hardly anything compared to what it was during the rule of the British in the 19th century. Indians then were the backbone of the civil administration and were influential in Burmese society. The Chettiar community from Tamil Nadu had firmly established themselves as prominent businessmen and powerful moneylenders in Burma during the earlier days of the British Raj. It was during the civil unrest of the 60's in Burma that many Indians were forced to leave the country.

Many of the Tamil populace came back to Chennai and settled in and around the north of Chennai. 'Burma Bazaar' consisted mainly of traders who had come from Burma and soon enough this market became known for smuggled electronics. But not everyone was a trader. Some of the Tamilians also brought back interesting street food from Burma and set up shops here.

Atho - An Interesting Street Food Story
The Tamilians from Burma set up their street food stalls near the Burma Bazaar. I was directed to Broadway by my friend Thiagarajan Kumararaja, a Tamil film director who also told me about this street in North Chennai where one can find Burmese style noodles. Kauk Swe Thoke, a popular street food dish in Burma is basically round-thick noodles tossed with cabbage, gravy, fried onion and an assortment of condiments. Aha! That little spark was enough for me. Burmese style noodles in Chennai! I wasn't going to miss that for anything else in this world.

I'd never gone to North Chennai before. And it took me a good hour and a half to figure that the Burmese style noodles called 'Atho' are available on a street by the name '2nd Line Beach road' which is parallel to Rajaji Salai. I found a vendor right at the entrance of the lane. My expectations were sky-high as Khao Swe was really popular. Here we have our own Burmese inspired noodles in our own backyard. Of which, so little is known. The first bite of the noodle salad and alas! I didn't know where to spit. The stuff looked really appetizing, but there was just too much cabbage stuffed with the noodles. I was extremely disappointed and politely paid the bill and moved on.

There were quite a few of these stalls. And each of them had 5 to 10 customers standing in front, tucking into a bowl full of hot noodles. I thought to myself there's got to be more to this, right? So I took help from a local person and asked him in my deeply-fractured Tamil "Anna Ingay best Burmese noodle where to find?" The guy took pity on me and pointed me to a noodle stall that wasn't in this lane but just off the parallel Rajaji Salai 'Avalada Best Taste' is what he told me. Hopes were a little higher now and I trudged on. I found this stall, which was slightly away from the rest and eventually I figured out why.

The stall is owned by a certain Abdul Aziz. His noodle preparations weren't particularly bad or particularly good, but they were definitely better that the rest. I still didn't get what the hype was all about though. It did cross my mind at that point, that a wee bit of shrimp paste would do wonders to this dish. But this was Indian street food after all and the dynamics were completely different. So I decided to also try the eggs he was offering. Boiled eggs were stacked one on top of the other with fried onion stuffed in them from the top.

Aziz bhai put an egg into the soup bowl, cut it up and added some flavoured oil to it. To that, he added salt water, tamarind extract and a bit of pounded red chilly. He then filled the bowl with a stew which tasted sort of like mutton or chicken but I couldn't really place the flavour. Then, Aziz bhai told me that it was vegetarian and made from banana stem. This came as a complete surprise and was something I would have never guessed.

So the soup had ginger, pepper, coconut and was flavoured with banana stem stock. I have to admit, the result was quite outstanding. I've never had anything like this on the streets of India. The noodles I thought were okay but the egg stew was very very special. Atho as a dish, grows on you. The locals of North Chennai love it and even queue up to eat this. It is truly unique and exceptional.

Address - Abdul Aziz stall's located in a lane in between Rajaji Salai and 2nd Line Beach road. Next to SBI ATM and opposite to Dass Camera Centre.

If you're worried about hygiene, then you might want to skip these street food joints. But if flavor is what you seek, then they're definitely worth a try.

About The Author:
Chowder Singh started blogging in November 2011 on Indian street food, small restaurants and hole-in-the-wall kind of places that in spite of producing brilliant quality food, are largely unrecognised outside of their localities. He believes that these are the real heroes of Indian food, who have been consistently putting out their family recipes over many years and now will hopefully get more recognition for the superb work that they've been doing.

http://chowdersingh.com

More articles from Chowder Singh:

The 160 year old square naan of Hyderabad
This Indian sweet is being made for over 225 years!
Have you ever tried a kala burger?
Nankhatai - The dying Indian 'biskoot'

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. NDTV is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

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Friday, October 31, 2014

Coffee with coconut milk, anyone?

Raviprasad Kamila

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How about using coconut milk to make tea, coffee and shakes? It is a possibility, going by research currently on at the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, Kasaragod, Kerala.

“Initial experiments have shown encouraging results. We hope to introduce coconut milk as a substitute for dairy milk,” P. Chowdappa, Director of the institute, told The Hindu .

He said the institute had made vanilla and chocolate shakes with coconut milk. “I have had all, even tea and coffee, and they taste very good,” he said.

He said the new use of coconut milk would help small and marginal farmers, as sale of the raw nuts alone would not be profitable for them. The value addition, part of the institute’s continuing research, would help. Coconut chips, virgin oil, neera and snowball tender coconut had earlier come out of its research pipeline.

Referring to the research in the coconut sector, he said more focus was being given to developing tissue-cultured palms.

Though the institute developed three varieties of palms tolerant to root wilt disease common in Kerala, farmers could not be supplied enough seedlings because fewer mother palms were available. Hence, the focus on tissue-cultured palms.

Food

Idlis done differently

Idlis are open to culinary interpretatio

Thursday, September 11, 2014

If Cows Could Speak |
Kirschner's Korner

kirschnerskorner.wordpress.com

... to the food we eat. The grain should be consumed by hungry children, not us. It takes thousands of gallons of water to produce one pound of our flesh.